Ravens cut Billy Cundiff

The kicker whose missed field goal at the end of the AFC Championship Game ended the Ravens’ 2011 season will not return to the Ravens for the 2012 season.

Billy Cundiff has been released by the Ravens, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.

Although Cundiff was a Pro Bowler in 2010 and, signed a five-year contract in 2011 and has been a very good kicker for much of his time in Baltimore, this move doesn’t come as a surprise. Undrafted rookie kicker Justin Tucker has looked good in training camp and the preseason, and cutting Cundiff saves the Ravens about $1.2 million in cap space.

Some teams may show interest in the 32-year-old Cundiff as a free agent, but that AFC Championship Game-ending miss will be fresh in many teams’ minds, and so will the fact that Cundiff has made only one of his last ten field goal attempts from 50 yards and beyond. Cundiff has fallen a long way since playing in the Pro Bowl a year and a half ago.

Not really a shock to Ravens fans, not only because of the missed field goal but then because of his latest comments about how “his services would be wanted elsewhere”. Time to test the waters there Bill

@notrelated says:
Aug 26, 2012 1:06 PM
Honestly, who would you rather have kicking a game winning field goal in the playoffs? A veteran kicker who missed one last year, or a rookie who’s yet to even sniff a regular season game?
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The answer is THIS rookie, plain and simple. He played at a big school, and will not have the rookie mentality after playing a full season. Would you want to trot Scott Norwood out there to “redeem” himself? No way. Too much pressure on the guy to make up for it, than a guy that is trying to pave the way to be a great kicker.

Time will tell, but I think that loss in the AFC Championship Game could very well go down as the most crushing loss in NFL history. If the Ravens bounce back and win a Super Bowl or two it will be forgotten, but if they don’t, that game will be infamous.

yes because it takes a classy organization like the Ravens to operate like this…

lead the kicker on, give him the impression he has an honest chance to recover from a crushing missed FG, ignoring the fact if their WR’s could simply hold onto the ball, that FG wouldn’t have even came into play, and the fact the coaching staff failed to call a TIME OUT, instead rushing him out there…

And then cutting him on the first round of cuts.

Frankly, it’s a bold and dangerous move. Putting all your eggs in a rookie FG kickers basket, especially when the division might come down to the Ravens/Steelers matchups, not to mention many of the other games the Ravens play, they may end up really regretting this move.

FG kicking isn’t the Ravens problem. Choking every single time they are a step from the Super Bowl is.